{"id":690,"date":"2010-08-10T07:42:16","date_gmt":"2010-08-10T07:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alexeames.com\/blog\/?p=690"},"modified":"2010-08-10T07:42:16","modified_gmt":"2010-08-10T07:42:16","slug":"over-reliance-on-email-gt4t-review-tranfree-72","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/alexeames.com\/blog\/2010\/08\/over-reliance-on-email-gt4t-review-tranfree-72\/","title":{"rendered":"Over-reliance On Email? &#038; GT4T Review &#8211; tranfree 72"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Fed up of staring at your screen? <b>Listen<\/b> to <i class=\"tt\">tranfree 72<\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/tranfree.com\/tf72.mp3\">tranfree 72 &#8211; Email Over-reliance &amp; GT4T<\/a><\/p>\n<p>You can also download this edition of <i class=\"tt\">tranfree 72<\/i> <a href=\"http:\/\/tranfree.com\/tf72.pdf\">as a PDF<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Editorial<\/h3>\n<p>Taking advantage of the long school  holiday and the &ldquo;freelance factor,&rdquo; we&rsquo;re currently in sunny Poland.<\/p>\n<p>I was in full &ldquo;work flow&rdquo; when we got  here, but when the temperature hit 38 degrees C, I took a break for a couple of  weeks. During this time, I tried to get out photographing insects, which is a  particular interest of mine at the moment. <\/p>\n<p>Butterflies, damselflies and dragonflies  are all quite difficult to get close to, unless approached slowly and  stealthily. Once you get close, as long as you make no silly sudden movements,  you have a good window of opportunity to &ldquo;get your shots&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;So what?&rdquo; I hear you say. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s this  got to do with translation?&rdquo;<br \/>\n      Well, clients can be a bit like  butterflies. You have to approach them <strong>on  their terms.<\/strong> You have to earn their trust. You have to avoid sudden silly &ldquo;movements&rdquo;  or they can beat their wings and you&rsquo;ll never see them again. But if you manage  all that, the results can be quite beautiful.<\/p>\n<p>You can see some of the results in the <a href=\"http:\/\/alexeames.com\/blog\/?cat=4\">photography section of my blog.<\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">But here&#8217;s just one where I got very close to a young Red admiral<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/alexeames.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/DSC_9735_01.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/alexeames.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/DSC_9735_02.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" border=\"0\"><\/a><br \/>\nRed admiral &#8211; Vanessa atalanta <br \/><sup>(click image for enlargement)<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>I hope you enjoy and benefit from <i class=\"tt\">tranfree <\/i> <img src=\"http:\/\/www.translatortips.net\/ubb\/smile.gif\" alt=\"smile\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.translatortips.net\/images\/alexsig.gif\" width=\"79\" height=\"60\" alt=\"Alex\"><\/p>\n<h2>Are  We Relying Too Much On Email<\/h2>\n<p align=\"center\"><em>By Alex Eames<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I think  we might be. I bet most of you use email to send and receive work files most of  the time. And most of the time, it probably works just fine.<\/p>\n<p>But every  once in a while an email does go missing. I used to advocate sending a quick  fax over to the client to let them know when you&rsquo;ve emailed a file across. But  hardly anybody uses fax nowadays &ndash; we cancelled our fax line about three years  ago because nobody had sent us a fax for a couple of years.<\/p>\n<p>This  helpful little method overcame the problem of undelivered emails. If the client  knew the email had been sent, they could chase it up if it didn&rsquo;t arrive within  a short space of time.<\/p>\n<p>But with  fax technology&rsquo;s fall from grace, and apparently increasingly reliable email  systems, this became unnecessary&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;or so we thought.\n      <\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Email is not 100% reliable.<\/h3>\n<p>The truth  is that email has never been, and never will be, 100% reliable. Spam filters,  system glitches and crashes, viruses, malware etc. all contribute towards  making life increasingly difficult for emails to get through. It&rsquo;s actually  amazing that the systems work as well as they do.<\/p>\n<p>A couple  of months ago we submitted a job file by email on a Monday evening because we  were going to be unavailable on Tuesday. Imagine our surprise when we returned  on Tuesday afternoon to a voicemail message asking &ldquo;how are you getting on with  the file?&rdquo; OUCH! An email delivery issue. Worse still, once the docx file was  received it couldn&rsquo;t be opened, so another round of communication was required.  We ended up downsaving it to Word 2003\/97, which could be opened by the client.<\/p>\n<p>How do  you get around this reliability issue? I doubt if project managers (PMs) want  to be texted to their mobile phones.<\/p>\n<p>Some  clients use ftp based systems to get around this, but that sort of setup may  not be appropriate for small clients. If it&rsquo;s a regular problem for you, you  might consider something like <a href=\"http:\/\/lsp.net\/\">http:\/\/lsp.net\/<\/a> as an integrated solution.<\/p>\n<p>Should we  just wait for PMs to chase us if the files don&rsquo;t arrive in time? Should we get  the fax machine out of the attic and revert to our old confirmation method? Or  do we just accept, as the client calmly did in this case, that emails are not  100% reliable and live with it?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>What about email security?<\/h3>\n<p>We don&rsquo;t  really want our clients&rsquo; confidential data being shared around the internet do  we? We don&rsquo;t want our own email accounts being hacked into do we?<\/p>\n<p>If you  have set up a new email account in the last couple of years, chances are it&rsquo;s  using SSL or TLS as standard (but it&rsquo;s worth checking).<\/p>\n<p>But if  you&rsquo;ve been in business for a while, what about that email account that you&rsquo;ve  been using for the last 10 years and haven&rsquo;t changed because it&rsquo;s become a part  of your business brand?<\/p>\n<p>Is it set  up to use SSL or TLS security? If not, you will be transmitting your username  and password in unencrypted plain text every time you log in. <br \/>\n      The same  goes for the full contents of your emails and attachments. If you&rsquo;re not using  SSL, TLS or some form of encryption, it&rsquo;s possible to intercept your  communications.<\/p>\n<p>That&rsquo;s a  serious potential vulnerability. It&rsquo;s worth checking all your email accounts to  be sure. OK there&rsquo;s a certain amount of safety in numbers because of the vast  bulk of email traffic &ndash; the chances of <em>your<\/em> data being intercepted illegally are slim &ndash; but they do exist.<\/p>\n<p>Even  these measures only protect your data between your computer and the mail  server. Between mail servers, your messages and attachments are not protected  from snoopers unless you encrypt them. If you are dealing with highly  sensitive, confidential information, you should seriously consider strong  encryption software (e.g. pgp.com) to protect the data.<\/p>\n<p>For a  full-blown essay on the subject of email security see&#8230;<br \/>\n      <a href=\"http:\/\/luxsci.com\/blog\/the-case-for-email-security.html\">http:\/\/luxsci.com\/blog\/the-case-for-email-security.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!-- ROUNDED CORNERS TABLE START alex promo yellow box--><\/p>\n<table width=\"500\" align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" border=\"0\" style=\"background-color: #ffffc6\">\n<tr>\n<td width=\"14\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/translatortips.net\/images\/top-left.gif\" width=\"14\" height=\"14\" border=\"0\" alt=\"...\"><\/td>\n<td width=\"472\"><\/td>\n<td width=\"14\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/translatortips.net\/images\/top-right.gif\" width=\"14\" height=\"14\" border=\"0\" alt=\"...\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><\/td>\n<td align=\"center\">\n<p>Alex Eames is the founder of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.translatortips.com\">translatortips.com<\/a>, editor of <i class=\"tt\">tranfree<\/i> and author of the eBooks&#8230;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.translatortips.net\/ht50.html\">How to Earn $80,000+ Per Year as a <br \/>Freelance Translator<\/a><br \/> and<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/translatortips.net\/sell-your-services.html\">Selling Your Professional Services on the Web<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/translatortips.net\/images\/bottom-left.gif\" width=\"14\" height=\"14\" border=\"0\" alt=\"...\"><\/td>\n<td><\/td>\n<td><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/translatortips.net\/images\/bottom-right.gif\" width=\"14\" height=\"14\" border=\"0\" alt=\"...\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p><!-- ROUNDED CORNERS TABLE END alex promo yellow box--><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/alexeames.com\/blog\/?p=708\">GT4T Review next<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Are we, as translators, becoming overly reliant on email as a means of sending and receiving our work. Is it reliable enough and is it secure enough?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,4,7,8],"tags":[45,53,54],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/alexeames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/alexeames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/alexeames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alexeames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alexeames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/alexeames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/alexeames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alexeames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alexeames.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}